Titled “The F Word,” its cover featuring the black contour of a woman’s body intersected by lettering in hot pink, Granta’s current issue bills itself as The Feminism Issue. I was excited to see a literary magazine taking on such a cause. Also, I was nervous.

My first concern was that the issue would be too narrow in scope. I worried that the stories and essays would focus almost exclusively on the lives of middle-upper class white women. My concern was not entirely unfounded: upper-middle class whites make up the bulk of the lit-mag subscribing demographic. Not to mention, the feminist movement of the sixties was itself often criticized for its elitism. Would a literary magazine dedicated to this topic fall into the same trap?

My second concern was with the very idea of a special issue. Are women’s lives such specialized subjects as to require their own theme issue, a cover decorated with hot pink lettering to boot? What about all the lit mags–Granta not among them–that consistently feature all or mostly male contributors writing about men’s lives and concerns unique to men? I don’t see any “Masculinity” themes attached to them, no baby blue writing adorning their covers.

My third concern was that I simply did not know what defined a feminist short story or a feminist poem. What would such a thing look like? Would it be difficult, deliberately alienating work, sacrificing literary conventions in order to emphasize political matters? (See Godard’s latest, “Film Socialisme”, to know the kind of excruciating viewer- alienation I am speaking about.) Or would it be the reverse, beautifully crafted pieces whose only nod to women’s rights is the author byline (bringing me back to concern #2)?

My final concern was perhaps the most idiosyncratic: Would the selected pieces be funny? Not because women aren’t funny. But rather because it is simply not easy to fuse serious political issues with humor. “I’m a Feminist,” Andrea Dworkin famously said. “And not the fun kind!”

Yet all of these concerns troubled me before I actually sat down with the journal. Once I cracked open the issue, the picture was different altogether.

Regarding concern #4–the answer is yes, there is humor. Delightful humor! I was wonderfully happy with Helen Simpson’s “Night Thoughts.” Here is the internal monologue of a man laying in bed at night, unable to fall asleep while his wife dozes unperturbed beside him. What are the thoughts keeping our hero awake? For one thing, he’s bothered by the fact that it’s always he who does all the housework. For another, “The media is so disparaging of men over forty…Why can’t there be some positive older role models for a change? Wherever you went, images of young men in next to nothing were in your face, making you feel bad about your body.”

Things aren’t so great in the bedroom either: “He couldn’t help resenting her impersonal demands for sex; her obdurate refusal to talk ever…Afterwards, she had rolled off him and fallen asleep with a snore.” By inverting the gender roles of her protagonists, Simpson uses humor to reveal just how much these experiences are, in fact, mere roles. “Night Thoughts,” while being delightfully funny, cuts to the quick with its brilliant indictment of cultural norms.

Additionally, Francine Prose’s essay, “Other Women,” while exploring the writer’s ups and downs with the consciousness-raising groups of the seventies, serves up some laughs. “How many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?” she inquires. “Answer: That’s not funny.”

Of the fiction, two stories in this issue rocked my world. I mean it. Rocked. My. World. Julie Otsuka’s “The Children” and Taiye Selasi’s “The Sex Lives of African Girls” are absolute must-reads (or, if you live near London, must-hears in one of the frequent readings hosted by the literary magazine.) Incidentally, both stories also satisfied concerns #1 and #3. No, this issue is not limited to the experiences of one particular class or race of women. (Otsuka’s story explores the lives of Japanese immigrants working in California fields; Selasi’s delves into the life of a young girl growing up Ghana.) And yes, there are stories that may be at once tremendously captivating and also decidedly feminist. (Both stories expose oppression that is unique to women. Both stories end in ways that are satisfying but not altogether resolved. And both emphasize the importance of women’s solidarity.)

In Otsuka’s case, the solidarity appears not just in the content of the story itself, but also in her choice of narrator. There is no “I” here, only “We.” “The Children” begins: “We laid them down gently, in ditches and furrows and wicker baskets beneath the trees. We left them lying naked, atop blankets, on woven straw mats at the edges of the fields,” and goes on to describe the harrowing farm work performed by the women. Conversely, the “They” refers to their children. The story takes a devastating turn as “they” grow up and assimilate into American culture, all but forsaking the cultural practices and values of the “we.”

In the center of the journal, and at a robust thirty-six pages, Selasi’s “The Sex Lives of African Girls” dominates the issue, and for good reason. This is a story that commands you to listen, to see, to feel. While moving forward and backward in time, from one city to another, the story (which takes place over the course of one day) lets you into the mind of a young girl growing up in Ghana. What captivates here are not only the shocking events of the story itself–violence and secrecy that will enrapture even the most jaundiced reader–but Selasi’s writing style. Such language! Such attention to detail! The sharp blades of hate that appear in a mother’s eyes, the humiliation of a man after a slap, the rain falling on a bewildered child–the story is richly satisfying on intellectual, sensual, and political levels.

All this brings me to Concern #2, the question of a special, or theme, issue. The work published here is astoundingly good. The journal offers a diverse and nuanced portrait of women’s lives. I read about French women resistance fighters in Nazi death camps (Caroline Moorehead’s “A Train in Winter”). I saw glimpses of the love affair between Alice B. Toklas and Gertrude Stein (“All I Know About Gertrude Stein” by Jeanette Winterson.) I learned of the exclusiveness of social clubs within academia (“No Grls Alod. Insept Mom.” by A.S. Byatt.) I was fascinated by Urvashi Butalia‘s account of an ostracized transgendered woman in India (“Mona’s Story”.) And Clarisse d’Arcimoles‘ photo essay, “Un-Possible Retour” brought tears to my eyes more than once.

So naturally I feel we must applaud Granta for what it has done: culled exceptional writing by both established and emerging women writers and brought the oppression of women into the forefront of our literary and cultural discourse.

Still, what are we to make of a theme issue on feminism? By categorizing the work in this issue as “feminist” or even feminist-friendly, do the pieces then run the risk of being essentialized? Specialized? Minoriticized? Afterall, if it’s equality for women that is the end-goal of feminism, is not a “special issue” dedicated to women writers and women’s rights entirely contradictory?

Perhaps, though, we mustn’t argue these points. Some might say that we should be happy that the journal is tackling the topic of feminism at all–and introducing the world to some fine talent in the process. Who cares what the journal is themed? Who cares how this work gets into the light of day? The point is that it gets there.

Well, here is where I stand: I love the stories here. I love the artwork. I love the essays and the poetry. Hell, even the hot pink lettering started to grow on me.

The problem for me is not that Granta has made a special issue for feminism. The problem is that such a special issue still remains necessary.